How can you track hours?
There are four common ways to track time, and most people end up mixing two. The difference isn’t really about accuracy—it’s about how much discipline each method takes, and what happens if you forget something.
- Paper, Excel, or Google Sheets. You add a row after each task or at the end of the day.
- Start-stop timer. Hit start when you begin, stop when you switch tasks.
- Weekly reconstruction. On Friday, fill in your week using your calendar, email, and memory.
- Automatic suggestions. Software tracks what you did and you confirm it. More in Automatic time tracking.
The real pros and cons
No method is perfect. Spreadsheets are free but need regular upkeep. Timers are accurate—if you remember to use them. Reconstructing at the end of the week feels quick, but you’ll miss short tasks and calls, which are often billable.
| Method | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Excel or Google Sheets | Free, flexible, familiar | Typos, no approvals, invoicing is manual |
| Start-stop timer | Accurate per task | Easy to forget, awkward if you switch tasks a lot |
| Weekly reconstruction | Low effort during the week | Short tasks get missed, descriptions get vague |
| Automatic suggestions | Little forgotten, minimal typing | You still confirm; needs an app on your computer or phone; you log phone calls yourself |
What columns does a good timesheet spreadsheet need?
If you’re using a spreadsheet, set it up right from the start. Use one row per task—not per day—and fixed lists for client, project, and activity so you can filter and total things later.
- Date. One date per row, as a real date (not text).
- Client and project. Use a fixed list (data validation) so ‘Smith Ltd’ and ‘Smith’ don’t end up as two clients.
- Activity. For example: consulting, development, travel, or internal.
- Start and end time, or duration. Duration in minutes or as a decimal; only use times if you really need them.
- Description. One sentence your client can understand.
- Billable. Yes or no. How to decide? See Billable hours.
- Invoiced. A column or invoice number, so you don’t double-invoice or miss anything.
Tip: Don’t put rates on every row—keep them in a separate table for each client or activity. When rates change, you won’t have to update hundreds of rows.
When is a spreadsheet enough?
If you work solo, have just a few clients, and invoice once a month, a spreadsheet works fine. You can see everything, and it doesn’t take much time to keep up. If you’re mainly tracking hours for yourself—like for the Dutch hours criterion for self-employed tax relief—a tidy list is usually enough too.
Just keep it up to date and back it up. A spreadsheet filled in all at once after the fact is weaker proof than one that grows over the year.
When does a spreadsheet start to fall short?
The breaking point usually sneaks up on you. A second person sends their own file, someone needs to review hours, or you want to see what’s still unbilled per client. Suddenly you’re spending more time merging files than doing the work.
If you have employees in the Netherlands, the Working Hours Act also requires a proper record of working and rest times, kept for at least 52 weeks. That’s a different record than project hours, but it shows how quickly separate files per person stop working.
- Team. Multiple files, inconsistent spellings, mixed-up versions.
- Approval. Who checked which week? A spreadsheet doesn’t show that. See Approving hours.
- Invoicing. Totals per client, applying rates, and marking what’s invoiced can easily go wrong.
- Accountability. In an audit, you’ll want to show who logged what, when, and if it was changed later.
How Half5 does it
In Half5, you log hours by client, project, and activity—using a timer, manually, or from the “Suggestions” in your timeline. Whether an hour is billable depends on the activity (“Billable” or “Non-billable”). With “Approve hours before invoicing,” hours are reviewed first, and from a report you can create draft invoices with “Create draft invoices from report.”
If you want to keep your spreadsheet, you can export a report with “Export to CSV,” to Excel, or to PDF. The CSV includes columns for Hours, Minutes, Description, Contact, Project, Activity, Employee, Date, Billable, Invoice status, Status, Leave/absence, Rate, Amount, Cost rate, Cost, Margin, and Margin %. You can filter in advance by activity, employee, billable, approval status, invoice status, and more.
Frequently asked questions
Google Sheets or Excel: does it matter?
Not much, for time tracking. Google Sheets is better if several people need to work at once; Excel is handy if you want to work offline. The columns and fixed lists matter more than the program.
Should I record start and end times or just duration?
For invoicing, just the duration is usually enough. Start and end times help if you need to show working hours or if a client asks for them.
Is there a free timesheet template I can use?
You don’t need one—a sheet with the columns above, fixed lists for client, project, and activity, and one row per task covers what most templates do.
Can I keep my old spreadsheet next to an app?
Yes, but keeping both rarely lasts. Most people end up logging in the app and exporting to CSV or Excel when they want to work with the numbers in a spreadsheet.
